


Merlin understands about these things

by kumquatix



Category: Merlin (BBC)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-12
Updated: 2010-03-12
Packaged: 2017-10-07 22:21:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/69839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kumquatix/pseuds/kumquatix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Once Merlin knows that Arthur is a prat, the rest of what he does is not difficult to understand.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Merlin understands about these things

The summer when Merlin was seven, it rained for two solid weeks at harvest time, and heavy gusts of wind flattened the soaked corn. So much grain rotted on the stalks that Ealdor had only enough seed for sowing, none for eating. Hunith didn't let on if she was worried about starving, and when spring came Merlin and Will made a game of foraging for food to supplement the cabbage, beets and half an egg a day they had to eat.

They learned to eat dandelions and nettles, and Merlin became almost as good with the slingshot as Will when he concentrated and didn't make the rock strike its target. Every time they came home with an extra meal was a celebration, and they invited friends and neighbours to share in what seemed to Merlin a veritable feast.

The only time Hunith didn't praise him lavishly was when he got his fingers bit to the bone while rooting out a nest of baby squirrels from a hollow tree.

"Merlin, love, you have to be careful," she scolded him. "You're going to be all right this time, but I don't want you sticking your hand in the mouths of wild beasts! And food for one day is not worth the risk of falling out of a tree and breaking your neck, you foolish boy!"

Merlin wasn't worried for himself, because his mother had worked for the royal healer in Camelot and knew everything there was to know about poultices. But he never wanted to see his mother pale and shaking with fear again. The tears in her eyes had made the squirrel meat swell up in his throat so he could hardly swallow it down, and it turned tasteless in his mouth.

\---

Merlin didn't take Arthur's rat chewed boot to be mended. He put his hand on it and made the leather grow back together again, taking care to make it look like a small disc of similar coloured and grained leather had been glued in place. Let the leather workers keep the glue for eating, that was a better use for it.

Then he sat down in the dark with his sling shot in his hand and waited very quietly.

\---

The summer Merlin was ten, he and Hunith were ditched at the market. Ervin Basketweaver got drunk and got in a fight, and got on his ox cart and left while Hunith was still selling her bunches of herbs.

It was already past noon, and they had to walk quickly if they wanted to make it to Ealdor before nightfall.

"The oxen walked to town in four hours, and we can walk as fast as an ox, Merlin. And while we walk, we can think of what favour we shall extort from Ervin as payment for this," Hunith joked.

Merlin laughed conspiratorially with her, but he was already thinking longingly of the large mug of cool beer he had had with lunch. They hadn't bought anything at the market, other than bread and cheese and beer to eat with the women from other villages whom Hunith only met on market days, so they didn't have anything to carry.

Merlin had slept poorly in the cart, jerking awake in the grey dawn every time they bumped over a rock or a tree root, and it was not easy to sing along with the walking song Hunith started, or to play the game of kicking a stone in front of them without having it jump out of the rutted track into the undergrowth.

After walking for maybe an hour, the ache in his legs and feet had become a constant dull throb that he barely noticed, but the longing for a slaking drink was getting more insistent. He concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other, and didn't notice Hunith had stopped until she grabbed his arm.

"Shush," she whispered. "I hear other travellers." And she pulled him with her away from the track and crouched down behind a bush.

When the wagon had passed, Merlin asked her why they had hidden.

"I have money in my purse, and those men could take that and whatever they wanted from a woman and a boy travelling alone, love," she explained.

Merlin nodded. He would not let anyone hurt his mother, but it was better to stay out of harm's way in any case.

Two more times they had to creep in among the trees and hide. Merlin tried not to mope. The light was growing dimmer and the shadows longer, and he wanted a drink and his bed in that order, but sulking would only make the walk feel longer. Instead he told Hunith about the time he had stepped on a grouse while sneaking up on Dallin; she had heard the tale before, but he embroidered it until they were both laughing.

For the fourth time they heard the sound of an approaching cart, and they hurried to hide. Hunith peeked out from behind her tree to see how far ahead the cart had gone, then jumped up and started running.

"Come, Merlin!" she called him over her shoulder.

They caught up to the slow moving cart, and keeping pace with it Merlin could feel his legs burning. He had not realized that they had been walking slower and slower as the afternoon passed: No wonder they weren't home yet.

"Good evening, good women," Hunith said with a warm smile to the two passengers in the cart. "Are you returning from market like we are?"

They were, and they and Hunith made small talk about the market place, and the taxes, and the price of cloth. Merlin didn't understand why Hunith wanted to talk to these strangers when they outnumbered them three to two, but they seemed friendly enough.

"Where are you headed?" asked the woman driving the oxen. She kept half turning in her seat to follow the conversation.

"Ealdor," Hunith told her. "It's right where the track branches after the standing stone."

"I know the place," she said. "We're going to pass by there. Why don't you hop on board, that way I can hear you better. You sound like you know a thing or two about commerce."

Merlin and Hunith swung themselves over the back of the cart, and cushioned themselves with the bunches of hay the women pushed at them.

"You look tired, boy" the one called Ailith said kindly. "Have a drink from my waterskin, that will buck you up."

He couldn't help it, he burst into tears as he thanked her. Hunith shushed him under her breath and shook her head, but they had walked for so long, and it was so late, he was so tired and thirsty, and he only now felt a fear he hadn't been aware of lift from his shoulders.

Ailith turned blotchy in the face, and the only thing they got out of her for the rest of the ride was her stiff shoulders and the red view of the back of her neck and ears.

\---

Merlin ate every bite of rat stew with a great show of reluctance and disgust. It was the least he could do, to please Arthur who stood looming over him with a smirk of glee for every delicious, filling spoonful he took.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [seasonal fruit](https://archiveofourown.org/works/384252) by [hardlygolden](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hardlygolden/pseuds/hardlygolden)




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